Up and Down Wall Street

Mass Delusion

Who really won the recent bloody skirmish in Gaza?

Not the least of the things bugging the stock market in the past month or so has been the prospect of a fresh Middle Eastern war erupting between an intractable Iran determined to get its oily hands on nuclear weapons and an Israel equally determined to prevent its sworn enemy from doing so. The recent bloody skirmish in Gaza between Israel and Iran's proxy, Hamas, was widely viewed as a dress rehearsal for the main event.

An uneasy truce went into effect last week. What we found particularly noteworthy was less the...